This 2001 film directed and written by Shunji Iwai, stars Hayato Ichihara (Yuichi) and Shugo Oshinari (Hoshino), as two childhood friends that go through changes between their time in Junior High, and High School.
Genre: Drama (Some disturbing situations involving young people.)
Starring: Hayato Ichihara, Shugo Oshinari, Ayumi Ito, Yu Aoi
Written and directed by: Shunji Iwai
Duration: +2hr
… what am I watching this TV fall season? It’s TV talk!! I went through 2 seasons of Dexter last month in a whim… and I just recently finished watching season 4 of Weeds, which I wasn’t so happy with, even though I heart Mary-Louise Parker. But what is moi watching now?
Well since TV…. here isnt’t er… very prompt with seasons – roughly waiting an average of 3 months for popular shows, and more… even a whole year – I’ve got to find other ways to watch, because I don’t like waiting.
Once again… imcomplete internet data makes me keep track of films in here~ xD Sept. 4 –
WOW, it’s the end of the month O_o, geez Time flies by~~~ The following were on my list of latest buys of Region 3 from Hong Kong:
First a little about the film:
(from Wikipedia)
Shot in 2004, by Shunji Iwai about two girls [Hana (Suzuki) and Alice (Aoi)], and the stress placed on their friendship as they move into high school.
Genre: Dramedy (Drama/Comedy) [**NOTE: It’s a Drama with Comedy, so don’t expect huge laughs]
Starring: Yu Aoi, Anne Suzuki
Written and Directed by: Shunji Iwai
Duration: +2hrs
Actually name of the book in Spanish is “Kioto,” but I can never get used to writing Kyoto with an “i” – I don’t think I can write “Tokio” either, there’s just something odd for me…
Anyway, I bought this book on Monday… short one, “The Old Capital,” it’s called in English, from the original Japanese title “Koto,” referring to Kyoto which was Japan’s capital back in the day~ xD – I bought this book because I’m superficial and buy books by their covers. LOL’ ~ I had seen a bunch of books in the store, and read a bunch of synopsis, but eventually returned them to the rack… but not this one, because I liked the cover. xD
Written by writer from Osaka, Yasunari Kawabata, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968 (First Japanese, and only?). In fact, this was one of the books mentioned (but I didn’t know this) … sadly, he killed himself 4 years later.
Kyoto (sorry, can’t type it with an “i”) is a book about nothing. There’s no BOOM by the end of the story, but yet it is a surprisingly good read. You know? Like one of those films that is about a little about everything, but nothing at all? Just like that. But just so you know exactly… the back of the book says it’s about a 20-year-old girl named Chieko in Post-War Kyoto, daughter of a Kimono maker, who discovers she was an abandoned child, despite her ‘parents’ story. Then one day, she discovers something while attending one of the many festivities in the city.
When I first began reading, I had a picture in my mind of how Chieko looked like (you may have an idea of who)~~ But then, I decided to look it up online, and found out that there was a made-for-tv-movie done for this, and OH SADNESS! I was kinda disappointed with the choice of Chieko~ T_T
Though the Spanish translation seems good enough, it does lose some UMPH… and it makes me wonder how it would look with the use of Japanese Honorifics. I mean, they already used words such as geisha, and maiko… so why not keep the honorifics too? I think it would’ve been a better read…
The book gets very nostalgic at points, there’s also some funny moments here and there, and there are parts that I don’t think I really got… which requires me to read it again. xD All in all, this book is a keeper~ and I want to check out other books by Kawabata.
The amount of films that are not in a language I can speak have increased at least 90% this year… thanks to the internet of course, otherwise I will be waiting for them to either arrive at the cinema, hit the small screen on satellite or cable, or just by finding some Region 1 distributor… but none of that!
Anyway, because of this reason, I have been focusing a lot on subtitles, and I finally have 3 films that I saw with fansubs and now I watched with the subtitles on the dvd. And the results are in… 3-0 in favor of fansubbing.
It’s not because the subtitles on the dvd are bad… they just lack on something. A little UMPH… a little personality… a little common sense?
VMA’s still on, and Pink just performed So What, which I dig. I actually own all Pink albums, even the first one, and I know that Pink pumps the audience good, just didn’t feel the performance tonight… Best of the night though, up until now.
Now, onto rumblings… Britney WON! She actually won a Moonman, which my dad was sure she wasn’t gonna do, and he was left flabbergasted. LOL – Anyway, I actually don’t care for any of the nominees… actually, dunno who’s nominated so I’m kinda going with the flow. xD But Britney won! Yes, I was also surprised, as I thought Katy Perry was gonna win and all…
Why the hell did MTV cut to commercials when The Ting Tings were performing? WHY! And they should really think about changing the category names from such as Best Female Video to Most Popular Video by a Female, because it’s hard to believe that a video by Jordin Sparks could win a spot in the nominees, instead of a Bjork’s video.
Trying to figure out a better way to keep updated with films I watch, some are not on Flixster or IMDb, which makes it hard to figure out which ones I’ve seen by the end of the month.
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Wow, a month already~ This post began Aug. 10th xD just because I couldn’t find some of the short films, ha! It’s a really not so fun way to keep track of films…
Anyway! I know I don’t blog DVDs, so I’m gonna do now! Can’t really remember which was the last DVD post I made of DVDs that I’ve bought, so these are the films in my last buy~~ which hasn’t arrived yet.
OMG, are you watching?? I can hear millions of Asian girls swooning~~~ Wang Lee-Hom and Bi singing Beijing Beijing Wo Ai Beijing!!!! Poor Kelly Chen… who? Where was Guan Zhe, though??
American-Chinese musician Wang Lee-Hom, and Korean musician Bi (Rain) perform together Beijing Beijing Wo Ai Beijing in the Closing Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics
Are you waiting for London? Eh, No~ What the heck was that, London? That looked more like a Superbowl half-time entertainment than an Olympic closing performance. We all love some Beckham… and some people love themselves some Leona Lewis and then some Led Zeppelin… but that was just so anticlimactic.
Anyway, going back. Closing ceremony was not as HOLY-CRAP-CAN’T-BELIEVE-THAT-I’M-SEEING-THIS, but it was pretty good. LOL’ I am still swooning over Wang Lee-Hom and Bi together….
I think one of my favorite parts was when the performers made the Olympic logo, because I’m so-oh-in-love with Dancing Beijing… unlike the ‘unnamed’??? 2012 London Logo. While watching the whole London Olympic sequence, I couldn’t help but think about school Motion Graphics. Yes, sure… aim at young people, but don’t alienate the older viewers. My mother sure didn’t appreciate that~~
Performers make the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics logo, Dancing Beijing, on the Memory Tower.
Moving on… again! Placido Domingo made an apperance! He sang alongside Song Zuying (which the dude on TV made sound like ‘Son Su Jin,’ which made me think she was Korean).
Hmm… will look for photos. Photos are everything… or at least a video clip. Did you swoon? Lee-Hom Wang and Bi deserve my swooning~~~ I hope you swooned!! xD
**EDIT** 8.54pm – Found some photos!
Continue Reading…
3 of 3!
This time with lovely Juri Ueno~~ Rocking photos by Kentaro Shibuya. First time i find a portfolio online…
Anyway, as the name suggests… A Piacere, is a pleasure… a delight. It’s got 50+ photographs of Juri-chan visiting Kodaira (Tokyo), Okinawa, Yokohama and Ebisu (Tokyo). Moreover, Juri’s photobook is western. LOL’ It begins from the left to right like any regular books you buy in America or Europe, and there’s a lot of easy-to-read info (like the cities, and people involved names).
PLUS, there’s an interview with Juri and Kentaro Shibuya. I didn’t get much of what was going on… since they didn’t talk much about food (and the interview is in Japanese), and food talk in Japanese is what I’ve been practicing. But they did talk about Juri’s musical projects, relating it to some of the photos of Juri playing the guitar. So a little bit of Swing Girls talk, then some of Nodame Cantabile… and they even get to talk a little bit about Niji no Megami (Rainbow Song)…
If you doubt whether to get this or not, photos are REALLY worth having, many of them have a natural lighting style that remind me of some Mario Testino photographs. Anyway… some photos of the photos ahead!! You know the drill!
